ACC football notes: Tar Heels coach throws red in players' faces

Thursday

Oct 25, 2012 at 12:01 AMOct 25, 2012 at 12:17 AM

Bob Sutton / Times-News

There’s already red around Kenan Stadium and North Carolina State’s football team and fans haven’t shown up.

That’s because North Carolina coach Larry Fedora plastered the Tar Heels locker room with red on the weekend, a ploy he said Wednesday was to make sure his team turned its attention to North Carolina State after a devastating loss to Duke on Saturday night.

“It was just something to get our guys refocused on the next week and the task at hand coming off a pretty frustrating loss,” Fedora said of the sight that greeted his players Sunday. “We needed to refocus immediately. So just decided to do that on my own. Had it done, and hopefully caught everybody’s eye immediately.”

Items in the locker room included N.C. State posters and photographs of the Wolfpack celebrating past success against North Carolina. According to some reports, there’s a photo of a hand (representing the Wolfpack’s five consecutive victories in the series against North Carolina).

Fedora said he hopes the Tar Heels learned from their 33-30 loss at Duke.

“It told me we have to learn how to finish as a football team, and that is something that we’re constantly working on,” Fedora said. “We had plenty of opportunities to win that football game.”

-- DUKE PUTS BOWL TICKETS ON SALE: When it has been 18 years since the last bowl appearance, there’s no sense in waiting to sell bowl tickets.

Duke, which has become bowl eligible for the first time since 1994, announced Wednesday that fans can register for bowl tickets through the school’s athletics website or by calling the ticket office.

Duke hasn’t been selected for a specific bowl. But with the Atlantic Coast Conference holding eight bowl tie-ins (and the possibility of two others), the Blue Devils are almost guaranteed a spot in the postseason with North Carolina ineligible to compete because of probation, Boston College and Virginia both one loss away from failing to meet bowl eligibility and a few others in danger of missing out on the postseason.

Fans can select bowl games they’d be willing to travel to from the list of potential bowls on ACC’s partnership list. The ticket order will be automatically processed if the bowl selected ends up being Duke’s destination. That decision will come no later than Dec. 3.